I finally finished read aloud #2 this year with the kids! (I’m hoping that once our school schedule begins in August, we’ll be going through books much more quickly because I’ll be read aloud to the kids every morning on the way to school drop-offs and then again in the evenings after dinner. My goal is to make it through at least 8 books with them by the end of the year. We’ll see!)

Paperboy wasn’t anything like I thought it would be and I almost stopped reading it after we encountered some language right at the beginning of the book. It had some kind of unexpected and “heavy” things in it for a kids’ book and I wouldn’t wholeheartedly recommend it because of that (I’d recommend reading it first to see if you think it’d be a good fit for your kids or not).

However, it opened up the door for some good conversations on topics that I felt were worthwhile and I’m glad we ended up finishing the book. But Silas did say, “Mom, I can’t believe that a book with multiple bad words in it would have won the Newberry Award.” I agreed with him!

This book teetered very close to the line when it comes to self-help books (which I’m not reading this year) and I almost felt a little guilty reading it because of that.

If you are feeling drained and exhausted and burnt out, this book has some helpful ideas and suggestions for how to stop living life feeling so exhausted and start feeling more energy and zest for life.

I was so encouraged by reading it to realize how the changes I’ve made in the last few years have made such a difference in how I feel. I still have days where I’ll feel really tired and worn down, but that’s always a sign to slow down and make room for rest. And I now pace myself in a healthy way so that I make time for rest and restoration, even in the middle of really full weeks. This book was a good refresher on living a life of feeling refreshed! 🙂

This was my favorite book of the week — and I actually listened to it for free on Overdrive. It was well narrated and a great story on a historical topic that I wasn’t very familiar with (the opium trade).

If you are looking for a good, clean historical fiction book to read or listen to, I’d definitely recommend this one. I’m not surprised that it won the awards that it did!

I also watched this 20/20 show on the Thailand Cave Rescue and it was fascinating. I would highly recommend it if you haven’t watched another documentary on the story… it filled in a lot of details for me that I had wondered about and also just made me feel pretty in awe of those divers who rescued the boys!

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It has a deep main space with 5 separate sections, a front compartment with insulated bottle holders and net pocket, a removable changing pad, and 100% waterproof exterior that can easily be wiped clean.

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